Voice-Messaging with Attachments

ABSTRACT

A network method for using a network telephone voice-mail service, by which a caller may leave a voice-message that includes the identification of an attachment, which may include, as examples only, audio, video, text, programs, spreadsheets and graphic attachments. A video, text, spreadsheet or graphic attachment may be converted to an audible attachment to the voice-mail at the caller&#39;s or the voice-mail subscriber&#39;s request. Such entries may be made, after receiving an automated prompt for leaving an attachment identifier or conversion request, audibly or by using a keypad entry. A network method is also provided for using a network telephone voice-mail service, by which the voice-mail service may detect an attachment to a voice-mail message and provide access to the attachment to the voice-mail message.

RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a continuation of U.S. application Ser. No.11/725,432 filed Mar. 19, 2007, which is a continuation of applicationSer. No. 10/045,443, filed Nov. 9, 2001, now U.S. Pat. No. 7,212,614,issued May 1, 2007.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The invention relates to the field of voice-messaging. In particular,the invention provides voice-messaging with file attachments that mayinclude, but are in no way limited to, audio, video, text and graphics.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

As society becomes increasingly more information-dependent, it isbecoming imperative, both for business and personal reasons, to provideand even receive information immediately and conveniently, whereby“convenience” is measured by the various media by which the informationmay be shared. A prominent implementation of such immediate andconvenient information dissemination includes electronic-mail (hereafterreferred to as “e-mail”), which is the transmission of memos andmessages, including text memos and messages, over a network. E-mail maybe sent to a single recipient or broadcast to multiple users. E-mailmessages may be sent to a simulated mailbox in the network mail serveror host computer until the individual messages are interrogated anddeleted. Further, text e-mail memos and messages may include fileattachments that may include additional text, audio, video, programs,spreadsheets, graphic attachments, etc.

But, even though e-mail messaging has become a tremendously popular andcommon method of communications, e-mail usage still has not surpassedtelephone usage, particularly in view of the surging popularity andsophistication of mobile telephone systems. However, telephonevoice-messaging systems, associated with both PSTN-based (publicswitched telephone network) and wireless telephone systems, do not havethe ability to provide users with voice-message attachments, which mayto include, but not be limited to, further audio messages, video, text,programs, spreadsheets, graphic attachments, etc.

Processing of potential attachments to either e-mail or voice-mail hasbecome more sophisticated including conversion of, for example, video totext and graphic attachments to their basic components. In the art ofvideo—in particular, video transmission of movies—it is known from U.S.Pat. No. 5,677,739 to provide an audible description of video scenes andaction for the sight-impaired. This video-to-audio conversion capabilitywould be especially useful in a voice-mail environment. Moreover,research has been performed at AT&T in the art of breaking displayableobjects into their components for representation or audio description.For example, a logo used in a letterhead may be described audibly to avoice-mail user in addition to the letter being read via known text tospeech conversion. Consequently, there is both a need and an opportunityto provide more meaningful attachments of various media to voicemessages.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

Therefore, the present invention provides a novel network method forusing a telephone voice-mail service, by which a caller may leave avoice-message that includes the identification of an attachment, whichmay include, as examples only, audio, video, text, documents created byword processing programs, documents stored in a markup language(including HTML or XML), programs, spreadsheets, and graphicattachments. Such entries may be made, after receiving an automatedprompt for leaving an attachment identifier, audibly or by using akeypad entry. Such a keypad may include, as examples, a telephonekeypad, a computer keyboard or even a computer touch-screen.

When the voice-mail subscriber for whom the message is intended accessesthe voice-mail service, by telephone, mobile unit or even computer, toretrieve the voice-message, an indication is given that an attachmentidentification has been included with the voice-mail message. Theindication may further include the type and format of the attachment,for example, audio (way or MP3), video (avi), text (txt), wordprocessing documents (doc), documents stored in a markup language (HTMLor XML), programs (exe), spreadsheets (xls), or graphic (jpeg or mpeg)attachments.

The voice-mail subscriber may then designate the means by which theattachment is retrieved. The mechanisms available for the voice-mailsubscriber to retrieve the voice-message attachment depend upon whetherthe voice-mail service is an Internet-based or PSTN-based system. Forexample, if the voice-message attachment identifier is a uniformresource locator (hereafter referred to as a “URL”) for an internetweb-site, the voice-mail subscriber may use any of the telephone keypad,computer keyboard or computer touchscreen to request that the URL or theassociated content be sent to the voice-mail subscriber's e-mailaddress. A uniform resource locator is a commonly employed means ofidentifying a resource. However, uniform resource identifier (URI) willbe used in the specification and claims defining a generic syntax for acompact string of characters for identifying an abstract or physicalresource where the resource need not be network accessible. The URI maybe classified as a locator, a name or both and is intended to capturefuture or later developed resource identifiers. Presently, URI isintended to include but not be limited to the following existent termsknown in the art: uniform resource locators (URL), relative uniformresource locators, uniform resource names and universal resourcelocators. For example, the uniform resource name has been recentlydeveloped to be globally unique and persistent even when the resourceceases to exist or becomes unavailable. So while a URL may locate aphysical resource, the URI may identify an abstract resource. Otherexamples of uniform resource identifier may be developed for applicationin the internet and should be deemed to be included within the term asused in the specification and claims.

A resource request may even be made verbally. For example, one may referto resources such as “my dental records” or “today's weather forecastfor Washington, D.C. and vicinity.” In accordance with the presentinvention, these may be located or a barge-in announcement may beprovided to indicate that the resource cannot be located without furtherinput (for example, the identity of the dentist). As another example,the voice-mail subscriber may request that a text attachment betransmitted by facsimile. In addition to e-mail and facsimiletransmission, other manifestations of the voice-message attachment mayinclude realtime display on a computer screen, mobile telephone,personal digital assistant (hereafter referred to as a “PDA”) or otherhandheld device by which the voice-mail subscriber has accessed thevoice-mail system and having a text, video or graphics attachment oreven a multimedia attachment converted to speech for direct play to therequesting subscriber.

It should be noted that there are no limitations to the permutations bywhich the voice-message attachment may be transmitted to the voice-mailsystem subscriber. That is, for example, upon request by the subscriber,audio, video, text, programs, spreadsheets, and graphic attachments maybe transmitted by e-mail; text, programs, spreadsheets, and graphicattachments may be transmitted by facsimile; audio, video, text,programs, spreadsheets, and graphic attachments may be transmitted inreal time to a computer screen, mobile telephone, PDA or other handhelddevice by which the voice-mail subscriber has accessed the voice-mailsystem. Further still, if the attachment is in video form, it may bepossible to transmit the audio portion thereof, an audible descriptionof the video scenes and action, or both, especially if the voice-mailsubscriber has access only to a telephone. The narration of the videomay be provided in accordance with existing services for visuallyimpaired people in non-telephony arts. Similarly, if the attachmentincludes a word processing document or a document in a markup language,the attachment may be processed to extract the text portions, which maythen be transmitted to the voice-mail system subscriber through any ofthe means previously described or an embedded graphics item verballydescribed.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

A better understanding of the present invention will become apparentfrom the following detailed description of example embodiments and theclaims when read in connection with the accompanying drawings, allforming a part of the disclosure of this invention. While the foregoingand following written disclosure focus on disclosing example embodimentsof this invention, it should be clearly understood that the same is byway of illustration and example only and the invention is not limitedthereto. The spirit and scope of the present invention are limited onlyby the terms of the appended claims.

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram showing the external and internal networkenvironments utilized by example embodiments of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart showing the process for leaving a messageaccording to an example embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing the process for retrieving a messageaccording to an example embodiment of the present invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

Before beginning a detailed description of the invention, it should benoted that, in the detailed description to follow, example embodimentsand values are given, although the present invention is not limitedthereto. Further, while the example embodiments of the present inventiondescribed below rely on elements of a public switched telephone network(PSTN), other embodiments are possible which do not rely upon suchelements. For example, the invention may be implemented within a systembased on Voice-over-Internet protocol (VoIP) technology.

FIG. 1 shows an exemplary architecture of a system that may implementthe present invention. System 330 may represent a public network inwhich a voice-mail system 335 may be included. The public network mayalso include a switch 345 and Service Control Point (SCP)/Service Node(SN) 340. In place of a public network, the System 330 could comprise aPBX (not shown) having a voice-mail system. The present invention is notlimited to the location of the voice-mail system 335. Voice-mail system335 may store an attachment to a voice-mail message or, in thealternative, an address of where the voice-mail attachment may be found,e.g., at File Storage System 325. Telephone 300 is used by a caller whenleaving a voicemail message. Telephone 300 may also be used by a userretrieving such voice-mail messages. Similarly, computer 320, InternetService Provider (ISP) 315, Internet 310 and server 305 may also be usedby both the caller and the called party, as will be described inconjunction with FIGS. 2 and 3, respectively.

The method of the present invention will be described with reference tothe flow charts of FIGS. 2 and 3, which respectively describe theprocess for leaving voice-mail messages with attachments and retrievingvoice-mail messages with attachments. Implementation of an exampleembodiment of the present invention begins with step 5 in FIG. 2,whereby a caller/calling party (hereafter referred to as the “caller”)dials an intended/called party using, for example, any one of atelephone, whether wired or wireless, or computer or any other terminalused for telephony purposes.

For the purposes of explaining the present invention, it is assumed thatthe intended/called party (hereafter referred to as the “called party”)is a subscriber to a voice-mail system. Further, the voice-mail systemmay be a PSTN-based system that is provided by a telephone serviceprovider or it may be based within a private branch exchange (hereafterreferred to as “PBX”), which includes private telephone systems within abusiness enterprise, for example. The telephone network, whether publicor private, is depicted in FIG. 1 as block 330.

After the network-based voice-mail system 335, which is part of thetelephone network 330, answers the call with an automated message thatprompts the caller to leave a message in step 10, the caller may leave averbal message which is recorded and stored in a voice-mail system'sstorage, which is well-known in the art of voice-messaging, or simplyawait the prompt for further options without leaving a verbal message.

The automated voice-mail system message that prompted the caller toleave a message may request the caller to end the message by pushing adesignated key, which may include, for example, the “#” or “1” button ona telephone touch pad, computer keyboard or computer touch-screen. Uponnot receiving the signal corresponding to the designated key, or upondetection of a predetermined amount of silence—for example threeseconds—without detecting that the caller has hung-up or otherwiseterminated the call, the voice-mail system may proceed to step 20 byplaying another automated message that offers the caller the option ofadding an attachment to the voice-mail message.

If the caller does not desire or otherwise intend to leave such anattachment, the caller may hang up the telephone or otherwise terminatethe connection, as in step 40. However, if the caller desires to leavean attachment to the voice-mail message, in step 25 the caller mayeither verbally enter the location of the attachment or enter thelocation of the attachment using a keypad, which may include, forexample, a telephone keypad, a computer keyboard or a computertouch-screen, corresponding to the telephone means utilized by thecaller. In one example, the caller may describe a uniform resourceidentifier by saying “Attach my dental records,” initiating a dialogwith the system regarding location of the requested resource and ananticipated security exchange to obtain release of the dental recordsfrom an identified dentist. A requested resource may be abstract and notpresently exist and identifiable only by a uniform resource name. Theattachment “location” or “address” entered by the caller, in step 25,which identifies the location of the attachment may include, forexample, a uniform resource locator (URL) (e.g., the character stringwww.att.com/voice_mail/fburg/War_And_Peace.pdf), whose construction iswell-known in the art. The URL may include an IP (Internet Protocol)address, which in turn may include or be translatable to, but is notlimited to, an IPv4- or IPv6-address, or a fully qualified domain name.The attachment location may also include a non-Internet address.Alternatively, the location or address of the attachment that is enteredby the caller may include an address of a document or other fileattachment that is stored in a public or private network or documentstorage system (for example, the dental records example above stored inprivate dental files). The identification of the location of theattachment may be performed by any one of spelling out the location(which may include a URL) by voice, by speaking the location'sconstituent words, by entering the location using a keypad, by choosingfrom a menu of documents previously stored by the caller, or by othersimilar means.

Since the location or address of the attachment may be entered verbally,the voice-mail system may include voice-recognition software.Accordingly, the voice-mail system may store the location of theattachment that has been provided by the caller verbally and/or in textform.

Step 30 may include the voice-mail system confirming the attachmentlocation or address that is provided by the caller by audibly replayingthe location or address to the caller and requesting confirmation byverbal or keypad acknowledgement from the caller. Upon receiving eithera verbal or keypad confirmation from the caller, the voice-mail systemmay determine the type of content in the attachment at the locationprovided by the caller or the attachment may include a self-definingcontent type. That is, the voice-mail system may determine if thecontent of the attachment is in, for example, any one of audio, video,text, programs, spreadsheets, graphic form or multimedia, for example,comprising both visual and audible portions. It is noted that the“programs”, as used in the context of the present invention, include,but are not limited to, programs in machine-executable form and programsin source code form. The determination may be made by the service node340 accessing the server 305 via the network 310 to retrieve theattachment file from the file storage 325. The network 310 may includethe Internet, a WAN or a LAN.

Step 35 may continue by having the voice-mail system store thevoice-mail message with the location of the attachment along with,optionally, an indication of the format of the attachment. In thealternative, step 35 may include the voice-mail system actuallyretrieving the attachment from the location entered by the caller andstoring the voice-mail message along with the attachment. Although thepresent invention is in no way limited, the alternative implementationof step 35 is most likely to be implemented when the attachment storedat the identified location is an audio file or a text file that isconverted to speech. Such implementation may also include retrieving theaudio portion of a video file attachment, obtaining or providing anaudible description of the video or converting an embedded graphic in atext document to a speech description. In such instances, an audio file,converted video or graphics file or converted text file or combinationfile may be attached to the voice-mail message in order to provideeasier access thereto for the voice-mail system subscriber uponretrieval. In an alternative embodiment, the caller or a voicemailrecipient (e.g., the voice-mail subscriber) may decide if video orgraphics conversion to speech is necessary or desirable. Further, suchimplementation is dependent upon the voice-mail system configurationthat may be set by default or by the capabilities of the terminal of thevoice-mail subscriber that may be ascertained from a subscriber profile.

The user may then be presented with the automated message that offersthe option of leaving another attachment, as in step 20. If the callingparty does not desire or intend to leave another attachment, the callmay be terminated, as in step 40. Otherwise, the processing may continueat step 25, as described above, and may further continue until thecalling party does not desire or intend to leave any further attachmentsto the voice-mail message.

As an alternative embodiment, the caller may also use a computer, PDA,or similar device in conjunction with the telephone to leave avoice-mail message with an attachment. As set forth above, the audioportion of a voice-mail message is left using a telephone. At step 25 ofFIG. 2, the user may use a keypad on a personal computer (PC) to enterthe information to identify the attachment. The PC, with its input, maybe correlated with the telephone by the voice-mail system keeping atable of corresponding telephone numbers and PC user identificationinformation. Alternatively, the caller may send an Instant Message (IM)to the SN 340 to thus identify the attachment to the voice-message. Thecaller's user identification information associates the IM with his orher telephone number. The caller's user ID may also be included in theIM.

Implementation of the present invention may further include retrieval ofvoice-mail messages with attachments, as shown in FIG. 3 and furtherreference to FIG. 1.

In step 105, the called party may begin to retrieve his or hervoice-mail messages by calling the voice-mail system using the telephone300, which may include any one of a wired telephone, a wirelesstelephone, a computer or any handheld terminal capable of telephoneoperations. In step 10, the called party may enter his/her logininformation, including a PIN (personal identification number), andreceive an inventory of messages. The message inventory may include anindication of the number of new messages as well as the number ofpreviously stored messages. Further, the inventory may identify whichmessages include an attachment, the location of the attachment or theaddress of the attachment and, further still, identify the content typeof such attachment(s). Meanwhile, a network system in accordance withthe present invention may retrieve a user profile including userterminal capability and verify that the user is entitled to use thenetwork service.

Step 115 may include the step in which, as is known in the field ofvoicemail systems, the user may enter either a verbal or keypad command,as described above, to retrieve messages for playback, and such messagesare played back in step 120. If an attachment to a respective voice-mailmessage has been entered by the caller, as described above, the playbackof the respective voice-mail message may conclude, or alternativelybegin, with an additional message component that may indicate thepresence of an attachment (which was stored by the voice-mail systemwhen provided by the caller or was pointed to when the caller providedthe location of the attachment). The attachment may optionally requireof the voice-mail recipient yet another entry of a security credential,which may include but is not limited to a PIN, for security purposes.That is, access to the attachment may include security precautionsbeyond those for accessing the voice-mail message. The attachment mayfurther optionally include at least one of the type of attachment andthe size of the attachment. Further, the playback of the respectivevoice-mail message may include options for the called party to choosethe means by which the attachment is retrieved. The playback options forthe called party may include, but are in no way limited to, having theattachment played back audibly immediately, forwarded to thecalled-party's e-mail account, transmitted to a designated facsimilemachine, or the content of the attachment may be transmitted to acomputer terminal, whether stationary or mobile, designated by a givennetwork address. The choice among the playback options is made by thecalled party by entering the designation either verbally or by using oneof the keypads described above. In the alternative, the voicemail systemmay provide an address of where the attachment may be accessed, eitherimmediately or at a future time.

That is, there are no limitations to the permutations by which thevoice-message attachment may be transmitted to the voice-mail systemsubscriber. That is, for example, upon request by the subscriber, audio,video, text, programs, spreadsheets, and graphic attachments may betransmitted by e-mail; text, programs, spreadsheets, and graphicattachments may be transmitted by facsimile; audio, video, text,programs, spreadsheets, and graphic attachments may be transmitted inreal time to a computer screen, mobile telephone, PDA or other handhelddevice by which the voice-mail subscriber has accessed the voice-mailsystem.

An attachment may be in the form of an electronic document havingmultiple portions that include separate and distinct types ofinformation. For example, a document or other file that is created witha word-processing program may include portions that include textual andgraphics information, that is, portions that include graphicalinformation such as drawings or photographs, and portions that includevideo and audio information. The portions not in audible form can beconverted to speech or already converted portions included at the user'schoice. Similarly, documents written in markup languages (e.g., HTML,XML, SGML) may interleave textual information with elements thatdescribe the document structure or the visual presentation. All suchdocuments and multimedia files may be referred to herein as “compounddocuments”. Textual information and data converted from video orgraphical form to speech in such compound documents may be representedor stored in intermediate file code in various ways, including ASCIIcoding, Unicode or a proprietary code, and may be subjected toadditional processing such as compression or encryption.

According to the present invention, compound documents may be includedas attachments to voice-mail messages. Such attachments may be presentedto voice-mail system subscribers who may only have access to a telephoneby extracting portions that include audio information, portions thatinclude textual information converted to audio form, audibledescriptions of graphics and video, and audible representations ofmultimedia files generally. Then, any extracted textual or visualinformation may be converted into audio form using a knowntext-to-speech or other conversion methodology, and providing an audioplayback of the converted information. As an example, if the attachmentto the voice-mail message includes a movie clip, it may be possible totransmit only the audio portion thereof and/or a description of thevideo scene and action. Similarly, if the attachment includes a wordprocessing document including an embedded graphics file or a document ina markup language, the attachment may be processed to extract thetextual information portions, which may then be transmitted to thevoice-mail system subscriber by any of the means previously described orto additionally provide speech descriptions of any embedded graphics.

A further playback option for the voice-mail attachment may includeallowing the called party to navigate through the attachment to selectonly desired items to be read back during the message retrieval. Suchvoice-commands for navigating through a document, which may includecommands such as “next paragraph” or “down two rows”, are known in theart for creating new documents, and may be found in programs thatprovide speech-to-text capabilities.

Step 130 may include a wide range of processing in accordance with thecalled party's selections from step 125. Among the processing includedin step 130, service node 340 may retrieve the attachment file based onthe location or address that is attached to the voice-mail message thatwas entered by the calling party. The service node 340 may retrieve theattachment file by interacting with the server 305, via the network 310,and then accessing the file storage 325.

Again, depending upon the voice-mail system configuration that is set bydefault or by the voice-mail subscriber, as well as the designated meansfor accessing the attachment file, the retrieved attachment file may beplayed back audibly immediately, forwarded to the called-party's e-mailaccount, transmitted to a designated facsimile machine, or transmittedto a computer terminal designated by a given network address. Forexample, if the attachment file is text, then text-to-speech software inthe voice-mail system may convert the attachment file to speech forimmediate audio playback to the called party. Audio attachment files maybe similarly played back to the called party. Further, video or graphicattachment files may be forwarded to the called party's computer 320,which may be a personal computer or a mobile terminal, via the network310 and Internet service provider 315 or alternatively described to theuser via video or graphics to speech conversion technology. Similarly,text and graphic attachment files may be sent to a facsimile machineusing the same line as telephone 300 after the user has ended themessage retrieval operation and hung up the phone, or to a facsimilemachine on a separate telephone line.

As a result, attachments are no longer an option only for e-mailtransmissions. Telephone voice-mail systems may now provide access tosuch attachments regardless of their format.

While the invention has been described with respect to specific examplesincluding presently preferred modes of carrying out the invention, thoseskilled in the art will appreciate that there are numerous variationsand permutations of the above described systems and techniques that fallwithin the spirit and scope of the invention as set forth in theappended claims.

1. A system for storing and retrieving voice-messages with attachments,the system comprising: a called party receiver, wherein the called partyreceiver is equipped with a voice mail system, and the voice mail systemhas a message prompting a caller to leave a voice mail message and amessage prompting a caller to leave an attachment, a first message storefor storing the voice mail message, and a second message store forstoring the attachment.
 2. The system of claim 1 wherein the firstmessage store is in the called party receiver.
 3. The system of claim 2wherein the first message store is located remote from the called partyreceiver.
 4. The system of claim 1 wherein the message prompting acaller to leave an attachment also prompts the caller to leave alocation for the attachment.
 5. The system of claim 4 further includinga keypad for entering the location of the attachment.
 6. The system ofclaim 5 wherein the keypad includes any one of a mobile terminal keypad,a computer keyboard or a terminal touch screen.
 7. The system of claim 1including access means for accessing the attachment.
 8. The system ofclaim 7 wherein the access means includes access to a public network. 9.The system of claim 7 wherein the access means includes access to aprivate network.